Why does the law of multiple proportions give such small whole numbers?

Answer: 

The reason it generally gives small numbers is that most molecules small enough to denote with formulas (rather than with acronyms such as DNA) simply don't have that many atoms in them.  If you were to find the formula of a very large molecule, frequently you'll find that these numbers aren't so small after all.  However, when the law of multiple proportions was invented, most of the molecules known were very, very tiny.

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